OnTheWight has been informed by a councillor that on Tuesday there’ll be a meeting at County Hall that is “an exclusive and confidential gathering”.
Eight members of the Isle of Wight council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee will receive a briefing about the Highways 25 year PFI contract.
OnTheWight has found in papers for next week’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee that item five will be, “The Chairman to report on outcomes from the confidential informal briefing held on 4 February 2020.”
Anyone can attend Scrutiny Committee meetings (details on the IWC Website).
Sign undertaking to keep information confidential
Independent Labour councillor, Geoff Brodie, claims that before the eight councillors receive answers to their questions (see below), “in a session from which all other opposition and non-Cabinet councillors are banned”, they will each have to “sign an undertaking to keep the information they learn confidential”.
He says this is on legal advice secured by the Council’s temporary Monitoring Officer (Geoff Wild) and the Director of Neighbourhoods (Colin Rowlands); both employees of the council, not Island Roads.
If this is the case, these eight councillors will not be able to share the information with Islanders or even colleague councillors. The eight councillors are Cllrs Garratt (Scrutiny Chair), Lilley (Vice Chair), Andre, Peacey-Wilcox, Love, Churchman, Quirk and Tyndall.
Brodie: “Disgraceful abuse of Members’ rights to information”
Cllr Brodie (Newport East) is outraged by this and says,
“As far as I am concerned it is better that no one has the information if it is to be handled in this manner. The information being provided will be worse than useless for effective scrutiny. Therefore, I will be attending the start of the briefing in protest.
“I am inviting others not on the Committee to join me. It is clear to me that Opposition members should be collectively protesting this disgraceful abuse of Members’ rights to information.”
Questions about the PFI
It’s understood they will receive answers to questions such as:
Payment milestones
- who actually signs off on the milestones?
- what milestones have been missed so far and what financial penalties have been imposed?
- how is/are the Cabinet member(s) kept up to date on milestones?
- if milestones were not met, when was each failure reported to Cabinet members and by whom?
- if milestones were not met, what action was taken by Cabinet members?
- are failures to meet milestones penalised?
- do penalties accrue until the milestone is achieved?
- have these penalties been imposed and accrued?
Core investment period
- it is understood that 60 per cent of the roads that were deemed to require upgrading at the start of the contract have been brought up to the required standard – is this correct?
- it is understood that the target is for 93 per cent of roads at the end of the core investment period – is this percentage correct? How likely is it to be met?
Capital payments
- it is understood that a capital payment of £10m was to be paid in 2019 if all milestones had been made – has it been paid?
- it is understood that a second capital payment of £20m may be paid in 2020 – is the intention to pay this even though road surfacing milestones may not be met?
Delivery and quality of service
- how many times has scheduled work been re-scheduled to the following year and for what reasons?
- of these, how many works have been re-scheduled more than once?
- what consideration has been given to ensuring that works are not re-scheduled more than once?
Garratt: Confidential briefings rare but sometimes necessary
OnTheWight contacted Cllr Garratt this morning for a response. The following statement was sent to OnTheWight this evening.
Cllr Andrew Garratt, who chairs the council’s corporate scrutiny committee, said,
“Confidential briefings to members of the council’s scrutiny committees are rare but from time to time they are necessary. This is always done on the basis of legal advice.
“Confidential briefings ensure that scrutiny members have access to information to which they are entitled, while at the same time maintaining the necessary confidentiality to protect and uphold the interests of the council and the citizens of the Isle of Wight, as well as preserve and respect the contractual rights of third parties.
“After receiving the briefing, members of the corporate scrutiny committee will consider how they wish to proceed and what further enquiries they might want to make. This will be a matter for discussion and decision at our scheduled meeting next week, 11 February.”
Article edit
5.12pm 3rd February 2020 – Statement from Cllr Garratt added
